Rahila Gupta is a freelance journalist, writer, activist and longstanding member of Southall Black Sisters. Her books include: a collection of essays she edited, FromHomebreakers to Jailbreakers: Southall Black Sisters in 2003; Provoked, the story of a battered woman who killed her violent husband and co-wrote the screenplay of the film which was released in 2007; Enslaved, on immigration controls, was published in 2007. Her play, a monologue in verse, Don’t Wake Me: The Ballad of Nihal Armstrong, ran in London, Edinburgh, New York, and four cities in India between 2012-14 and was nominated for a number of awards. Her articles are published in the Guardian, New Humanist, New Internationalist and openDemocracy among other magazines, journals and websites. She and Beatrix Campbell are collaborating on a book, Why Doesn't Patriarchy Die? which will investigate how patriarchy fits with diverse political systems. She visited Rojava, Northern Syria in March 2016 as part of the research for the book. She has been commissioned by Idle women arts project to write the Rubáiyát of Rojava. She is also co-writing a play with her daughter on the Indian partition for Tara Arts.

Twitter @RahilaG

A Dream Realised: A Women's Revolution in Rojava

Unnoticed by most of the world and its media, in the middle of a war zone, in Rojava, Northern Syria, a radical secular experiment in class and race equality and direct democracy with women in the driving seat is taking place. It could provide a model of governance for the rest of the world, let alone Syria, but are its ideas too radical for both its allies and its enemies?

Rahila will be involved in the following FiLiA sessions:Revolutionary Women (Saturday Morning)Sex and the Citadel: Gender, Sexuality and Religious Fundamentalism (Sunday morning)